By Rathindra Kuruwita Courtesy The Island

The current Presidential system allowed all Sri Lankans eligible to vote to have a say in deciding who should be the Head of State, and the 20th amendment to the Constitution seeks to deprive the voting public of that right , leader of the United National Freedom Front (UNFF), Maithri Gunaratne says.

He told the media yesterday, “All citizens vote and that’s true democracy. The President is elected by the people directly. The proposed system will vest that power in 225 MPs.

Is this a good system at a time when almost all MPs have taken money from Arjun Aloysius of the Perpetual Treasuries Limited?”

Most of the MPs have been bought off by the rich and powerful who have sinister intentions and it will be easy to manipulate the lawmakers, Gunaratne said.

“We have recently found that people we expected to be clean have taken money from Perpetual Treasuries Limited. What we can do is to ensure the sovereignty of the people.

Gunaratne said the 19th Amendment to the Constitution had removed the unnecessary powers vested in the Executive President. “Now no one is on the roads asking for the repeal of the post of executive President? No one wants the 20th Amendment. There are people who can’t win elections and they want to hold positions without winning elections. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) by bringing in the 20th amendment is directly helping such persons.”

One Response to “Maithri on why 20A is bad”

Not really. In 2015, more than 60% of the majority rejected Sirisena but guess who was elected president!

Without executive presidency, people have a right to decide who the Head of State should be. At no election before EP an unknown Head of State was elected. All PMs (then head of state) were sought by the people.

But after the EP was introduced, people’s choice of PM and even Opposition Leader were totally disregarded.

Only nations with a single official language have executive presidents. Sri Lanka is not one of them so having an EP fractures the nation along languge lines. This can be seen in almost all presidential elections (except 1994). The world sees most of the Tamil Eelam and Malayanau maps when presidential elections are held.

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